Whether working with monks, medics or the military, dogs have long supported rescue missions. Russell Moul gives an overview of the many times through history that canines have braved terror and turmoil to come to our aid.
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Monks living in the Great St Bernard Pass in Switzerland may have used dogs to rescue travellers who had become stranded on the snowy mountain roads as early as the late 17th century. Originally introduced as guard dogs, Alpine mastiffs, which were smaller than the St Bernard dogs we know today, became valuable guides for travellers on the mountain pass. Their endurance, resistance to cold and keen sense of smell made them talented at locating those who had lost their way.
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In 1820 Sir Edwin Landseer completed his famous painting ‘Alpine Mastiffs Reanimating a Distressed Traveller’. If you look closely at the painting, you can see that one of the dogs wears a small cask around its neck, which is popularly believed to contain brandy. However, it seems this may have been an invention of Landseer himself and not a practice among the monks in the Alps. Regardless, the image of the mountain-rescue dog with the cask of brandy around its neck has remained popular ever since.
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By the early 20th century, many countries were training a variety of breeds as combat aids. Collies and retrievers were thought to be good breeds for ambulance dogs, who would carry first-aid kits (often in pockets in their saddles or in pouches worn around their necks) to wounded soldiers, as depicted in Edgar Alfred Holloway’s 1904 painting here.
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Due to the changing nature of warfare, wounded combatants could fall in difficult or isolated locations and be harder to find. In 1904, the British public became interested in the potential role dogs could play in addressing this issue of modern warfare. Several newspapers and even the British Medical Journal published articles on ambulance dogs and explained how they could be used to track down wounded soldiers after combat had ceased.
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These ambulance dogs, through their sense of smell, were able to locate fallen soldiers even in the most remote or isolated locations. If the soldier was strong enough, he could use the bandages carried in the dog’s saddle to temporarily bind his wounds while taking advantage of the small cask of brandy that these dogs apparently did carry around their necks. The dogs also carried a bell to be used at night, and there was even a biscuit in the saddle as a reward for the four-legged rescuer.
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By the start of World War I, the ambulance dog had become a fixed feature of many armies. According to Theo F Jager in his 1917 book Scout, Red Cross and Army Dogs, by 1916 there may have been up to 10,000 ambulance dogs operating along the front lines of the war.
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The Germans were by far the most successful at deploying ambulance dogs. In 1893, the Deutscher Verein für Sanitätshunde (German Society for Ambulance Dogs) was established to train small numbers of the animal for this purpose, but it was only when the war started in 1914 that the medical department of the German Ministry of War fully embraced their potential. As the war progressed, these dogs were not only attached to the German Red Cross but also many regular army regiments.
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Major Edwin Heautonville Richardson, a renowned military dog breeder and trainer (his wife is shown here with some of their trainees), spent a decade campaigning for the British War Office to employ dogs ahead of World War I. However, the War Office remained unconvinced. Although they did eventually acquire some rescue dogs, they ultimately preferred to train dogs to carry messages and ammunition rather than rescue people.
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The War Office’s reluctance to invest in ambulance dogs may have been due to the cost of their training. According to Major Richardson, training an ambulance dog cost about £20–25 per animal in 1904 (about £1,960 today). Despite this, the British Red Cross bought several dogs for battlefield aid work, and they were successfully deployed during the war.
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Dogs have continued to play various roles during armed conflicts. In World War II some continued to serve as rescuers by helping to identify bodies buried under rubble during the Blitz. However, this seems to have been the limit of their roles as aid support. Instead, most dogs employed by the military carried messages and ammunition or acted as guard dogs.
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During the Korean and Vietnam wars, dogs also acted as scouts who helped to locate hidden enemies. Today, dogs are used for locating drugs, bombs, bodies, and various forms of evidence in forensic investigations, but they also continue to provide support for lost people in avalanches and other disaster-recovery operations.
About the author
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Russell Moul
Russell is a freelance writer with a PhD in History. He specialises in the history of science, medicine and ethics, and is particularly interested in the role of doctors and medicine in historical violence.